


Friendship

by Grinner_H



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1884123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grinner_H/pseuds/Grinner_H





	Friendship

The first time you meet him, he's a fucking mess.

His skinny black tie hangs askew around his unbuttoned crooked collar. He's got his wrinkled white shirt half-tucked into dark slacks, a wary look and a trenchant scowl which indicates he doesn't wanna _be_ here, doesn't _belong._

You're bright brown eyes and a bruised smile - blood and ketchup mingled on the front of your shirt, someone else's gum on the otherwise immaculate top of your expensive leather shoe - and it is in _him_ you find your kindred spirit.

You are thirteen years old and too wild to live, and _this_ is how it starts.

\--

The first present he ever gives you is a can of beer - the shitty kind.

He casually tosses it in your direction - in that way you _hate_ and _know_ he loves, because it makes you fumble like an utter idiot.

Squalo falls gracelessly onto the grass beside you, elegant like a ravenous, rabid pit bull. "I stole it," he announces triumphantly around a self-satisfied grin, like it's an achievement worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

 _"Congratu-fucking-lations,"_ you offer; part-sarcastic, part-sincere. 

It only makes him grin _wider._

This doesn't surprise you. You are Mafia children and _this_ is your real education.

\--

When it happens, you're both fifteen.

He is too-much hair and a brutally broken heart. 

_You're_ just a bundle of raw lust and misguided envy; anger for all the wrong reasons. 

You _know_ what they say. You've heard it all before - stuff like, _"That kid's gonna be the next Sword Emperor"_ and _"They're still keeping him in the Varia? He's just as crazy as Xanxus."_

But what they _don't_ talk about - don't _know_ about - is the erotic flush of his pallid skin, the way he writhes and mewls beneath you like a two bit whore in some Sicilian back alley.

And it starts like this - kisses like vicious bites on any place but his lips, the zip and unfurl of his tattered jeans, the heat of your slick cock against his.

You think about Xanxus within the impenetrable walls of his algid prison, and mentally stomp all over your guilt when you watch Squalo cry.

\--

The first kiss comes after - much, _much_ later, when you're both sixteen and too old to die.

He's yelling at you about things which don't really matter, because he's still _here_ and _alive,_ and _God,_ isn't that _enough?_

You don't like the way Xanxus's name spills so easily - so _recklessly_ \- from his lips, so you kiss him to shut him the fuck _up._

You taste cigarettes and red tea and solitude, blood when he bites your lip and shoves you away.

\--

Eventually, he learns to kiss you back.

You bite his tongue, thinking that his blood tastes so much better than your own.

\--

By eighteen, neither of you are what you used to be.

You have Reborn to thank for your evolution. You have Xanxus to blame for _his._

And it _kills_ you to watch him scream louder, fight harder; atonement for all the wrong sins, making it up to someone who never gave a shit about anyone but himself.

It fucking _hurts,_ but all you can do is just fucking _be there._

And when he stumbles into your bed at night, it's lips, teeth, tongue, everywhere, _every-fucking-where_ till he _forgets,_ even if only for a moment.

You hold him till the morning light, till the cycle of destruction begins all over again.

\--

Before you realize it, you're twenty-two and redundant.

You decide you liked it better before, when Xanxus was still frozen and the end of your world seemed millenniums away.

"You're gonna come back to me, y'know," you tell him, counterfeit surety masking unebbing fear.

Squalo stares at you from beneath those unruly bangs, looking at you like you're an utter moron. "I'm not disloyal," he snarls, in _that_ way that makes you want to kiss it off his lips.

 _Precisely,_ you think, but choose to let it - _him_ \- go, watching him walk away.

\--

But in the end, it starts like this. 

He tosses you a can of beer - the _good_ kind - and plops himself down on the earth beside you. 

He's a little more limber now, a little more graceful. 

_You_ don't fumble like a fucking idiot anymore. 

"I stole it," he declares, still so ebullient, eagerly awaiting praise like a good puppy dog. 

You think about his hair which doesn't stop growing, his left hand which he'll never get back, his unexpected defeat at the kid's hands, and the scars which litter his body from when he became shark bait. You think about the fact that he's still _here,_ he's _survived,_ and by _God,_ it's _enough._

_"Congratu-fucking-lations."_

Some things never change.


End file.
